Man Arrested In Leonard McCoy Themed Medical Device Scheme

On October 22, 2013, Howard Leventhal was arrested by the FBI for defrauding a Florida company of $800,000 and attempting to defraud an undercover law enforcement agent of more than $2.5 million. He will be prosecuted in the Eastern District of New York.

The colorful and creative Leventhal owns and operates an Illinois company called Neovision USA Inc. In May 2012 he entered into a factoring agreement with Paragon Financial Group Inc., a Florida company, by the terms of which Paragon would advance Neovision $800,000 in exchange for the right to collect a larger sum supposedly owed to Neovision by Health Canada.

Leventhal explained that Health Canada owed Neovision money for a device implausibly called “Heltheo’s McCoy Home Heath Tablet” that he claimed could instantly deliver detailed patient data to health care professionals. The puckish Leventhal named his tablet after Star Trek’s Dr Leonard McCoy.

Boldly, he impersonated a number of Health Canada officials, including former Deputy Health Minister Glenda Yates. To make his claims more persuasive, he created a number of domain names and email addresses that closely resembled those used by Health Canada.

According to the FBI, Neovision had no agreement with Health Canada, and the signature of Glenda Yates on the document Leventhal showed his victims was a forgery.

The complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that Leventhal also attempted to defraud a potential investor who, unfortunately, was an undercover agent. He fed the agent his story about Health Canada and the tablet, and then, as a further inducement, showed him him six months of phony Bank of America statements for Neovision that falsely showed more than $10 million in payments from Health Canada to Neovision from March 2013 through July 2013.

U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said, “In reality, his scheme was pure science fiction, complete with phony documents and a fictional medical device. As part of his alternate reality, Leventhal impersonated Canadian government officials by creating phony government contracts, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses. Investors thought they were advancing scientific technology; instead, they were merely financing Leventhal’s fraudulent scheme.”